Recording - September 2020 - 68

R&R

REVIEWED &
REVISITED

Harrison Mixbus 32C Version 6
The latest version of this console-style, analog-flavored
DAW, complete with workflow tips and tricks

REVIEW BY JAMES LINDENSCHMIDT

arlier this year, Harrison released Version 6 of its popular Mixbus/
Mixbus 32C digital audio workstation. Mixbus is a full-featured and
highly affordable DAW promoting True Analog Mixing™. Mixbus
32C adds an emulation of the classic Harrison 32C parametric fourband sweepable EQ, and four additional stereo summing buses. I use
Mixbus 32C for all my mixing projects these days, so I'll focus on that for
this review, but the regular Mixbus is worth checking out if you have a
mind to dip your toes into the Harrison world.

The Look

A lot of attention has been paid to
the graphic display, which makes using
Mixbus more pleasant and efficient.
Mixbus looks and works great on large
monitors where there's room for all the
controls on the virtual mixer, but smaller
screens used to require a lot of zooming and scrolling to see and make use
of it all.
In Version 6, the mixer display is
much more configurable and 'maps' to
smaller monitors. It doesn't force you to
view both the EQ and the aux sections
at the same time anymore, and you can
quickly toggle to hide and unhide them.
68 RECORDING September 2020

This, and other optimizations allow you
to work much more efficiently on a
smaller screen.
There are subtle but useful improvements in the GUI. Now, when adjusting a compressor or EQ in the Mixbus
mixer, the value of the parameter being
adjusted is displayed in real time in the
channels name strip as you alter the setting, offering a great visual reference for
precise parameter control.

Under the Hood

Many Version 6 improvements are
under the hood in the audio processing
engine. The 'analog' sound of Mixbus

has always been its selling point, appealing to its devoted and growing
user base.
Previously, Mixbus was not great with
latency compensation and cue monitoring, but things are much improved in
this version. You can now create additional buses alongside your audio
tracks, and everything is fully latency
compensated, just like the regular Mixbus buses (this was not the case previously). Version 6 now also features
foldback buses offering unlimited custom cue mixes for the band.
Mixbus and Mixbus 32C show the
open source Ardour-based development model in action. Harrison has
contributed quite a bit to the Ardour
code base, which is a win/win for both
Ardour and Mixbus.
The benefits of this open source collaboration manifest in efficiency when
monitoring in real time while running
resource-heavy plugins such as amp
sims. In the past, many Mixbus users
have used the program for mixing only,
doing all production in other DAWs
and then exporting stems into Mixbus
for mixing. With the improved latency
and the new 5th generation True Analog Mixing Engine™ (T.A.M.E.) in
Version 6, it's now becoming possible
to migrate all audio production over to
Mixbus, especially as the MIDI workflow implementations continue to improve. Speaking of MIDI, Mixbus now
includes CUE monitoring of both the
input and playback signals.

Further Improvements

Other improvements include integrated DAW-style aux buses with latency
compensation and pans that can follow the main track panner or remain
independent. There's a new dedicated
cut tool, source list organization for improved file management, location and
recovery, a new QWERTY based Virtual
MIDI Keyboard, and multi-platform native MP3 file import/export.

Recording - September 2020

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